A Woman's Hand

You never know where the idea for a novel will come from. Sometimes, it comes in a brilliant flash of inspiration; more often than not, from long, deliberate meditation. Occasionally, however, a story will be borne out of personal experience.

Writing a novel based on things that really happened can be tricky in that life doesn’t always provide a convenient denouement, drawing all the loose strands of the plot together. Relationships usually fade without drama, without leaving that niggling feeling of What if? Real people seldom die, are killed, or commit suicide in a timely manner—plot devices which are overused in novels—and sadly, there are few happily-ever-afters in real life.

That said, something happened a few years ago that had me remembering a past life of sorts, a time when I was thirty and simultaneously dating a number of women. One of them would become my first wife, another would become the quintessential woman scorned, and a third would become the wretched casualty of my fickle heart. Fifteen years later that third woman would write to tell me that she would never ever, ever forgive me for what I did to her.

And so, I present a third novel based in Japan about the curious relationships that occur between an American man and Japanese women. Consider it an Act of Contrition. Unorthodox in structure, I hope this novella doesn’t feel like an Act of Contrition for the reader, too.

I was at the corner of an intersection in town waiting for the traffic signal to change when I saw her.

Akané.

Yeah. She was across the street . . .

And not alone.

That was the thing: she was pushing a buggy with a child, a 6-month old child, sitting in it.

How did Akané look to you?

Pretty as always. She was still wearing her hair long and straight, the way I liked it. But something didn’t seem right.

How so?

She didn’t look like a woman who had given birth.

Meaning?

She was still thin as a rail, and her breasts lacked that certain . . . “buoyancy”, if you will.

What you are trying to say is that it was evident to you Akané wasn’t lactating.

Yeah. I’ve always had something of an eye for that.

That’s odd, Peadar. I always took you for an arse, man.

What?

Nothing, nothing. Anyways, you were going to say that for a fleeting moment there you thought Akané had given birth.

Well, yeah. I hadn’t heard anything about her for over a year. So, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities.

No, I don’t suppose it was.

So, whose kid was it?

A friend’s. Akané was babysitting, playing Mommy, while her friend shopped.

I’ve always been curious about something.

And that is?

Akané noticed me that day, didn’t she?

She did.

I thought so.

She was only pretending not to have seen you. She wanted you to think the child was hers. She wanted you to be jealous. She had heard through the grapevine that you weren’t happy. Akané wanted you to think she was absorbed in raising her child when in fact she was as alone and miserable as ever.